The cat in the dovecote
The cat in the dovecote (original title Cat Among the Pigeons ) is the 51st detective novel by Agatha Christie . It first appeared in the United Kingdom on November 2, 1959 at the Collins Crime Club and in the United States in March 1960 with Dodd, Mead and Company . The Scherz Verlag (Bern, Stuttgart, Vienna) 1961 published the German edition to the one used to date translation of Dorothea Gotfurt .
It determines Hercule Poirot in his 28th novel. It only makes a very late appearance in the last third of the novel.
introduction
At the beginning of the summer semester at the girls' school in Meadowbank there is no reason for Miss Bulstrode, the popular but aging director, to assume that she will not be able to master the challenges ahead. She often has to deal with the illustrious parents, who also show up at school drunk. And so she doesn't really listen when Mrs. Upjohn, mother of a pensioner, sees someone in the schoolyard whom she knows from the secret service from the days of the war. But still there is danger - a murderer is at school and he will soon strike.
action
The story begins with a look back at what happened three months ago in Ramat, the capital of one of the richest countries in the Middle East. A revolution there had driven Prince Ali Yusuf out of the country. He had entrusted his fortune in the form of jewels to his personal pilot, Bob Rawlinson. Rawlinson had hidden the jewels in the luggage of his sister, Joan Sutcliffe, who is traveling with her daughter Jennifer. He is observed by a mysterious woman in the next room of the hotel. Soon after, the prince and his pilot died in a plane crash while trying to leave the country. Now the hunt for the jewels begins. The British secret service is also involved in the search. The school in Meadowbank quickly comes into focus because not only Jennifer is studying there, but also Shaista, the prince's cousin and fiancée.
At the beginning of the summer semester there are a few new employees: Adam Goodman (a secret service agent as a gardener), Ann Shapland (Miss Bulstrode's new secretary), Angèle Blanche (the new French teacher) and Grace Springer (a sports teacher). The emphatically masculine and arrogant Miss Springer annoys many with her uncompromising and egocentric behavior.
Miss Bulstrode is meanwhile busy looking for a suitable successor for herself. On the one hand, Miss Vansittart comes into question, who has a lot of experience and would certainly continue Miss Bulstrode's work. But she is completely unimaginative and has no new ideas. On the other hand, Miss Rich would be a possible candidate. Miss Rich is a young English teacher with lots of good ideas but little experience.
All reflections on the successor's problem are suddenly interrupted when one hears shots from the gym in the middle of the night. Miss Johnson and Miss Chadwick immediately run into the hall and find Miss Springer's body.
During the investigation, Inspector Kelsey interrogates all staff. Adam Goodman reveals his true identity to him. Meanwhile, the reader's attention is drawn to Jennifer Sutcliffe's tennis racket, which she had in Ramat and which could be a good place to hide the jewels.
Jennifer writes to her mother that the racket is no longer properly balanced and that she urgently needs a new one. For now, she swaps the bat (and the name tags) with her friend Julia Upjohn. When an unknown woman appears with a new bat, she thinks it is a present from her aunt Gina and gives the lady her old (Julias) bat. In a letter she thanks her aunt, who doesn't know anything about a tennis racket.
On a weekend when most of the girls are at home with their parents, Shaista is kidnapped by a chauffeur apparently sent by her uncle. Miss Vansittart is murdered the following night. Miss Bulstrode decides to temporarily close the school and sends almost all of the girls home. Julia is one of the girls who is staying because her mother is abroad. Julia is a very attentive child and was puzzled by the story with the tennis rackets. She barricades herself in her room and examines her (Jennifer's) tennis racket and discovers the jewels.
Suddenly she hears someone at the door and sees the handle being pressed. She is about to scream out loud when the handle is released and the person disappears. The next day she escapes from school and goes to Hercule Poirot, whom she knows as a friend of her mother.
When the investigation now focuses on Miss Blanche, it turns out that she is not the killer either. But she knew who the killer is and is also murdered after trying to blackmail her.
Poirot now discovers that Princess Shaista was a false princess. The real princess had been kidnapped much earlier in Switzerland. The current kidnapping was nothing more than an escape from school. She was smuggled into the school by a group of criminals who didn't know exactly where the jewels were hidden. The murderer, on the other hand, must have known that exactly and must have been in Ramat. Most of the teachers weren't abroad for the vacation - except for Eileen Rich, who was reportedly ill during the time. In reality, however, she had traveled to Ramat for the birth of her illegitimate child. The child was born dead. Jennifer had somehow recognized her, but remembered her as a very fat woman.
Just when it appears to be clear that Miss Rich could be the murderer, Mrs. Upjohn enters the room, who Ann Shapland identifies as the woman she saw on her first day of school and recognized from her intelligence work during the war. Ann Shapland draws a pistol and Miss Bulstrode stands in front of Mrs. Upjohn. When Miss Chadwick, for her part, stands in front of Miss Bulstrode to protect her, she is fatally hit by the gunfire.
It turns out that Ann Shapland murdered Miss Springer for being surprised by her while she was looking for the tennis racket in the gym, and Miss Blanche for attempting blackmail. But she has a perfect alibi for the murder of Miss Vansittart. Miss Chadwick is responsible for this, who hated Miss Vansittart so much that she killed her in an affect.
At the end of the book, Miss Bulstrode names Miss Rich as her possible successor, Poirot hands the jewels over to a mysterious “Mr. Robinson ”, who in turn gives it to a young English woman whom Prince Ali Yusuf had secretly married and who is now his widow. An emerald returns to Julia Upjohn as a keepsake.
people
- Hercule Poirot, the Belgian detective
- Inspector Kelsey, the investigating officer
- Green, a police sergeant
- Percy Bond, a police sergeant
- Chief Constable Stone, Kelsey's superior
- Honoria Bulstrode, principal of the Meadowbank Girls' School
- Ann Shapland, Miss Bulstrode's secretary
- Elspeth Johnson, the housemother
- Miss Chadwick, a co-founder and longtime teacher at the school
- Eleanor Vansittart, an experienced teacher
- Eileen Rich, a teacher
- Grace Springer, the PE teacher
- Angele Blanche, the French teacher
- Miss Blake, a teacher
- Miss Rowan, a teacher
- Princess Shaista (in German translation: Shanda ), a princess from the Middle East
- Emir Ibrahim, Shaista's uncle
- Julia Upjohn, a student at Meadowbank and Jennifer's friend
- Mrs. Upjohn, mother of Julia
- Prince Ali Yusuf, former Sheikh of Ramat
- Bob Rawlinson, his pilot and British secret agent in Ramat
- Jennifer Sutcliffe, niece of Bob Rawlinson
- Joan Sutcliffe, Bob Rawlinson's sister and Jennifer's mother
- Henry Sutcliffe, Jennifer's father
- Margaret Gore-West, senior student at Meadowbank
- Colonel Ephraim Pikeaway, a member of the Secret Service
- John Edmundson, a Foreign Office clerk
- Derek O'Connor, a Foreign Office clerk
- "Adam Goodman" (also "Ronnie"), an agent in operations
- Dennis Rathbone, Ann Shapland's friend
- Briggs, the head gardener
- Mr. Robinson, influential financier
- Lady Veronica Carlton-Sandways, mother of two schoolgirls
References to other works
When Julia asks Poirot for help, she says she heard from him from Maureen Summerhayes, the owner of the guest house where Poirot lives in Four Women and a Murder . In The Snow White Party , Poirot later remembers the school principal.
Geographical references
Nothing is said in the novel about the real role model of the fictional sheikdom Ramat. However, there are some traces (the proximity to Aden and the mountains) that indicate that Ramat is one of the sheikdoms in southern Yemen that were still independent at the time the novel was completed.
Film adaptations
For the television series Agatha Christie's Poirot , the novel was filmed in 2008 with David Suchet as Hercule Poirot . The plot was moved to the 1930s to match the style of the entire series.
Major expenses
- 1959 Collins Crime Club (London), November 2nd 1959
- 1960 Dodd Mead and Company (New York) March 1960
- 1961 German first edition by Scherzverlag in translation by Dorothea Gotfurt
Individual evidence
- ↑ Chris Peers, Ralph Spurrier and Jamie Sturgeon. Collins Crime Club - A checklist of First Editions . Dragonby Press (Second Edition) March 1999 (Page 15)
- ↑ American Tribute to Agatha Christie
- ↑ a b German first edition in the catalog of the German National Library